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Such in this union is the soul's temper that even the act of
Intellect, once so intimately loved, she now dismisses;
Intellection is movement and she has no wish to move; she has
nothing to say of this very Intellectual-Principle by means of
which she has attained the vision, herself made over into
Intellectual-Principle and becoming that principle so as to be
able to take stand in that Intellectual space. Entered there and
making herself over to that, she at first contemplates that
realm, but once she sees that higher still she leaves all else
aside. Thus when a man enters a house rich in beauty he might
gaze about and admire the varied splendour before the master
appears; but, face to face with that great person- no thing of
ornament but calling for the truest attention- he would ignore
everything else and look only to the master. In this state of
absorbed contemplation there is no longer question of holding an
object: the vision is continuous so that seeing and seen are one
thing; object and act of vision have become identical; of all
that until then filled the eye no memory remains. And our
comparison would be closer if instead of a man appearing to the
visitor who had been admiring the house it were a god, and not a
god manifesting to the eyes but one filling the soul.
Intellectual-Principle, thus, has two powers, first that of
grasping intellectively its own content, the second that of an
advancing and receiving whereby to know its transcendent; at
first it sees, later by that seeing it takes possession of
Intellectual-Principle, becoming one only thing with that: the
first seeing is that of Intellect knowing, the second that of
Intellect loving; stripped of its wisdom in the intoxication of
the nectar, it comes to love; by this excess it is made simplex
and is happy; and to be drunken is better for it than to be too
staid for these revels.
But is its vision parcelwise, thing here and thing there?
No: reason unravelling gives process; Intellectual-Principle has
unbroken knowledge and has, moreover, an Act unattended by
knowing, a vision by another approach. In this seeing of the
Supreme it becomes pregnant and at once knows what has come to be
within it; its knowledge of its content is what is designated by
its Intellection; its knowing of the Supreme is the virtue of
that power within it by which, in a later [lower] stage it is to
become "Intellective."
As for soul, it attains that vision by- so to speak- confounding
and annulling the Intellectual-Principle within it; or rather
that Principle immanent in soul sees first and thence the vision
penetrates to soul and the two visions become one.
The Good spreading out above them and adapting itself to that
union which it hastens to confirm is present to them as giver of
a blessed sense and sight; so high it lifts them that they are no
longer in space or in that realm of difference where everything
is root,ed in some other thing; for The Good is not in place but
is the container of the Intellectual place; The Good is in
nothing but itself.
The soul now knows no movement since the Supreme knows none; it
is now not even soul since the Supreme is not in life but above
life; it is no longer Intellectual-Principle, for the Supreme has
not Intellection and the likeness must be perfect; this grasping
is not even by Intellection, for the Supreme is not known
Intellectively.
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